Romania's Enemies From Within

Updated Jan. 28, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

Romania's volatile miners were bought off last week with promises of wage increases and assurances that the government would ditch its plan to close two loss-making mines in the Jiu Valley. The government weakly celebrated the end to a conflict that might have had a more violent denouement. The relief will prove short-lived.

As in the past, the miners' strikes--if violent rampages and thuggery can be called mere strikes--are about more than the frustrations of underemployed workers in a loss-making industry. They are a...